Tolkien Gleanings #284
* From Nepal, the journal article “Homely Pastorals versus the Unhomely Forest” in Middle-earth. Part of a special 2024 open-access journal issue on forests in literature. Freely available online…
“There are extensive studies of the forests of Tolkien […] However, the forests of Tolkien have rarely been studied as opposed to the idea of home”.
* A ‘Call for Papers’ for the annual German Tolkien Seminar 2025. The theme will be “Tolkien’s works on the book market”. Despite being called a seminar the event will actually run across three days from 31st October to 2nd November 2025. It seems likely to result in a Walking Tree book in due course, since the publisher is sponsoring.
* A new Michael Drout lecture, “Making I = Eye: How the One Ring Works in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings”. Set for 24th March 2025, near Boston on the East Coast of the USA. Possibly only for advanced students at the hosting university, though it is being advertised on a public Web page.
* A forthcoming lecture on “Tolkien and Dante”, on the YouTube channel of the Italian Fede & Cultura Universitas. I assume it will be in Italian, but YouTube can AI auto-translate to subtitles.
* The open-access Journal of Tolkien Research has begun a new rolling issue. First up is a very barbed review of Celebrating Tolkien’s Legacy: Essays (2024). I would question the reviewer’s statement that… “Beorn has no definable community during the time-period of The Hobbit”. He has his animal-friends. I would imagine that talking horses and ponies would be rather interesting company, and the presence of large structures to house them suggests a permanent (if fairly small) community…
They can talk to him: “Some horses, very sleek and well-groomed, trotted up across the grass and looked at them intently with very intelligent faces; then off they galloped to the buildings. ‘They have gone to tell him of the arrival of strangers,’ said Gandalf.”
And he can talk to them: “Beorn clapped his hands, and in trotted four beautiful white ponies and several large long-bodied grey dogs. Beorn said something to them in a queer language like animal noises turned into talk.”
One might also consider Beorn’s apparent dances-with-bears festivities: “There must have been a regular bears’ meeting outside here last night. […] all dancing outside from dark to nearly dawn. They came from almost every direction”.
* Slipped into the previous issue of Journal of Tolkien Research, just before it finalised, “He Is the Master of Wood, Water, and Hill: Is Tom Bombadil the True Key Keeper of the Old Forest?”. Freely available online. There are some nods towards very vaguely-historicised ‘druids’, but the author more interestingly sees a connection with the Green Knight, who in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was also “acting as a guardian of the [ancient] forest” and likewise invited the unexpected traveller(s) to hospitality, and then guided them on their way. A way which, I would add, in short order leads to a somewhat ‘Green Chapel-like’ situation for the hobbits — complete with a “pale greenish light”, deadly edged weapons, and a temptation to easy escape (Frodo thinks of putting on the Ring). Also Tom pops his head through an opening in the barrow. All very Gawain-like, I’d suggest.
* “Translating Original Languages: Knowledge Integration From Extended Nomenclature” (2025). A new Masters dissertation in Engineering, which… “investigates machine translation from the constructed languages Quenya and Sindarin into English.” Freely available online.
* On Archive.org ‘to borrow’, a scan of Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural: a treasury of spellbinding tales old & new (1985). Note that this volume of key short fiction reprinted the ‘old’ 1930s version of Tolkien’s “Riddles in the Dark”, which was later revised to bring it into line with the new Lord of the Rings.
* The large Italian Tolkien exhibition is now rolling south through Italy, and towards its third venue. The show will run from 7th March to 31st July 2025 at the Palace of Culture, Catania. This being the main town on the east coast of the island of Sicily.
* And finally, in the pictures for an eBay listing I’ve noticed that there was a musical aspect to the caves Tolkien visited in 1916, at Cheddar. Cox’s was actually one of two rival cave-systems open to the public at Cheddar, and Garth thinks Tolkien and Edith would have visited both in 1916. The details is in a book of what appear to be ‘Real Photo’ cards (photographic prints at postcard size, not screenprinted) is currently on eBay.